Commentary on the Black Scarf and its associated classes.

[Nyalyn]

Well intentioned perhaps, the idea of this thing, but fundamentally misguided seeing as it doesn't address any of the actual problems these classes have. Essentially what you're doing is inviting people to Pimp My Ride, but instead of fixing their cars you promise them a set of shiny new chromed-out spinnie-rims provided they shape up their cars to tip-top standard themselves, then drive them to the other side of the world and back (I'm assuming here that the quest for obtaining the scarf is a pain in the butt without even having found the NPC - shoot me).

Let me ask you this; how many level 99 ninjas and gunslingers are there on the server? I'll save you the time of looking that up; 1 ninja and 6 slingers at the time of writing. And here you are catering to a market that is for all intents and purposes nonexistant. You might be thinking "well duh, but people are gonna start making ninjas and slingers when they see these shiny spinnie-rims, how couldn't they I mean seriously, they're so shiny!". While I'll concede that they are rather shiny for gunslingers, you won't get many enthusiastic cheers from the ninja crowd, and this is not only because there are no ninjas but also due to the fact that the problems of the ninja class are rooted in the skills being designed by stupids, and no amount of stat manipulation is going to resolve that.

I was going to write a long-ass, detailed post analyzing my gripes with every skill individually and suggesting solutions point by point, but I figured that'd be too much of a hassle for both me as the writer and you as the reader, not to mention the GMs should they take any of the ideas seriously, so I will instead suggest making an alternate ninja-only version of the Black Scarf that has the following stats:

-Cast time of Falling Ice Pillar, Lightning Crash and Throw Fuuma Shuriken halved.
-Aftercast delays across the board halved.

Now, before you burst a bloodvessel over the audacity of this request, let's take a look at what this change would actually entail:

-Throw Kunai would now be conceivably useful since it would be possible to throw it at a reasonable speed. It would still do crap for damage, its projectiles would still cost up to 14 times as much as equivalent arrows do and its range would still be half of that of bow/gun users.
-Throw Fuuma Shuriken would now be castable at a higher frequency, although it would still have the stupid-as-all-hell damage-split which I understand can't be coded out without changing the skill itself.
-Throw Zeny would now be viable in high-intensity combat since you wouldn't be crippled for 5 seconds after using it.
-Flip Tatami would now serve an actual purpose since you'd be able to hide or use a skill while the pneuma-effect persists, as opposed to just extending your death-sentence by 3 seconds.
-Dragon Fire Formation would be a slightly greater spell.
-Falling Ice Pillar and Lightning Crash would actually be viable for the first time ever, seeing as the problem these spells currently have is that they're centered around the caster as opposed to being ground-targeted spells. Anyone who has played a ninja will know that it is frankly unreasonable to the point of madness to try using these two skills as every time you get hit by anything you bounce off into the distance and discharge your silly little AoE into thin air. (pre-emptive reply to the LOL UES ILLUSIONARY SHADOW-crowd; go try mobbing with IS and these spells on RMS' test server. Do go on, I'll be waiting in breathless anticipation). Also take note that these spells do crap for damage, even against monsters that are vulnerable to their elements; DFF and NW are both far superior in just about every way. The only reason I'm even arguing for fixing these two is because it'd add great utility for both PvP and PvM, plus some much-needed variance in playstyles.

The Kiel card and other delay-reduction items are bound to be mentioned by naysayers at some point, so let me get them out of the way before I proceed: Half a cart-termination is equal to the damage a TZ will do in WoE while being infinitely more spammable, and with TZ being the only skill that could conceivably be abused with a high delay-reduction; your argument is now moot.

There are a few misc skills that would also be affected but I won't go into detail about them because I consider the benefits they receive to be insignificant to the point of vapidity. So in short: the throwing skills would receive an increase in both burst damage and damage over time, and the magic tree would get a slight increase in damage over time and a great boost to utility. I'd think this would make ninjas much more appealing to play than a mere boost to stats, which as mentioned doesn't really help the class in any significant manner. Also; Please reduce the level-requirement to 90 or 95. Consider that some of us may not want that pig-disgusting aura polluting our beautiful animu visages.


In closing of the ninja-chapter I'd like to argue for the reinstatement of the ability to use Shadow Jump and Shadow Slash in WoE. As I understand it this effect can't be coded into items, so it would require tampering with the skills themselves, something I understand the GMs to be reluctant to do. However, I can't conceive of a reasonable argument against enabling these skills in WoE apart from "LOL GRAVITY IS THE BOSS", which frankly holds less water than a sieve at this stage of customization. Monks, champions and taekwon classes are all permitted to use their mobility skills in WoE, and every single one of them poses a bigger threat to the wellbeing of a castle than a ninja does. You know it be true.


Now then... gunslingers;
Personally I don't think this class is half as bad as the lack of people playing it suggests that it might be. They're glass-cannons, to be sure, but powerful ones. The only real problems I see them having are the massive amount of SP their skills consume, the complete lack of utility, the fact that flip coin can't be relied upon in combat for five cents (heh), and the below-average survivability, which I contend that their damage-output more than makes up for. I'd suggest replacing the INT bonus of the Black Scarf with a significant reduction of SP consumption, say 30%.

There are a few other things that I could suggest that would make the class more attractive, but that would probably require tampering with skills;
-Give Increasing Accuracy a movementspeed buff for the duration of the skill. Gunslingers have no reliable ways of regaining distance between them and their targets, which severely gimps them when it comes to fighting players/strong monsters.
-Flip Coin should really have a higher success rate than 60% at max-level. Currently you can't replenish your coins mid-combat because of the rampant randomness of this skill.
-Give all of the mines their status effects back, and boost their chance of hitting. Freezing spheres used to freeze, flare spheres used to knock back, blind spheres blind, poison spheres poison, and I can't currently recall what the lightning spheres did, but I'm sure you can think of something to put there. This would certainly make gunslingers a lot more attractive in WoE, if nothing else.



Finally, in case the propositions for changing the Scarf are rejected, I'd like to throw in another idea into the mix: Consider the myst case hat, the siroma card, the salamander card, the dragontail card, etc. You could easily modify these cards to add equivalent buffs to related ninja/gunslinger skills, like throw zeny, lightning spear of ice, dragon fire formation and rapid shower, respectively. I'm not saying it'd get any non-ninjas/GSs excited about the classes, but it'd certainly make the current players of those classes a bit more content.

[Fabre]

all this sounds great, i have no intellectual input since i dont know anything about iether of these classes, but i have had some problems with the classes i do play and can understand a severe need of change to them to just make them viable. just saying good job on your post
luvs

[Namine]

If anything, the scarf helps SN more than ninja or GS put together (but it's not transferable without GM service, so the SN still needs to get a lv 99 ninja/GS to get the scarf)

[Rankin]

i have no idea about ninjas, but having played a GS since they were released and hated their uselessness (granted their useful at certain times) i definitely agree with the GS issues.

[Corporal]

Nyalyn Wrote:-Cast time of Falling Ice Pillar, Lightning Crash and Throw Fuuma Shuriken halved.
-Aftercast delays across the board halved.

Broken, just by looking at the request. However, let's dissect the skills it would affect, as you had listed.

Nyalyn Wrote:-Throw Kunai would now be conceivably useful since it would be possible to throw it at a reasonable speed. It would still do crap for damage, its projectiles would still cost up to 14 times as much as equivalent arrows do and its range would still be half of that of bow/gun users.

This skill already bypasses enemy defense. Every other class would need a Combat Knife or Incant Sam card to do this, but you're doing it just by the base skill, and it's ranged to boot. Also, it never misses unless there's a pneuma or tatami (meaning you don't need dex for this to even hit). Making it go any faster is ridiculous.

Nyalyn Wrote:-Throw Fuuma Shuriken would now be castable at a higher frequency, although it would still have the stupid-as-all-hell damage-split which I understand can't be coded out without changing the skill itself.

I've never noticed this skill much first hand, so I'm just going to pass on this until I get more info. AFAIK though, this skill just blows. It's like watching creators use Demonstration or Acid Terror. Every class has shitty skills, just don't use them.

Nyalyn Wrote:-Throw Zeny would now be viable in high-intensity combat since you wouldn't be crippled for 5 seconds after using it.

Being crippled for 5 seconds after a ranged skill that can do up to 5k (in PvP) or 10k (in PvM) and cannot be reduced? No, this skill is fine as is.

Nyalyn Wrote:-Flip Tatami would now serve an actual purpose since you'd be able to hide or use a skill while the pneuma-effect persists, as opposed to just extending your death-sentence by 3 seconds.

It's balanced because of the 3 seconds, especially since you're already given cicada skin shedding. If you were able to spam tatami and spells in between, then it would be like you have a walking pneuma AND safety wall at the same time.

Nyalyn Wrote:-Dragon Fire Formation would be a slightly greater spell.
-Falling Ice Pillar and Lightning Crash would actually be viable for the first time ever, seeing as the problem these spells currently have is that they're centered around the caster as opposed to being ground-targeted spells. Anyone who has played a ninja will know that it is frankly unreasonable to the point of madness to try using these two skills as every time you get hit by anything you bounce off into the distance and discharge your silly little AoE into thin air. (pre-emptive reply to the LOL UES ILLUSIONARY SHADOW-crowd; go try mobbing with IS and these spells on RMS' test server. Do go on, I'll be waiting in breathless anticipation). Also take note that these spells do crap for damage, even against monsters that are vulnerable to their elements; DFF and NW are both far superior in just about every way. The only reason I'm even arguing for fixing these two is because it'd add great utility for both PvP and PvM, plus some much-needed variance in playstyles.

DFF is a strong skill already - you don't need to make it any stronger. O admit FIP and Lightning crash aren't as good as they could be, but there are simply MUCH easier ways to level or use a ninja (at bradium golems, for example) that wouldn't require you to get such useless skills.

Nyalyn Wrote:The Kiel card and other delay-reduction items are bound to be mentioned by naysayers at some point, so let me get them out of the way before I proceed: Half a cart-termination is equal to the damage a TZ will do in WoE while being infinitely more spammable, and with TZ being the only skill that could conceivably be abused with a high delay-reduction; your argument is now moot.

TZ is ranged, CT is melee. You can't reduce TZ, but CT you can pot off all day long since its very reducable. Give TZ a bragi and it's even more scary, especially since you stacked kiel on it (unless it's approx the same, then TZ itself is already strong enough and needs no buffs whatsoever).

Nyalyn Wrote:So in short: the throwing skills would receive an increase in both burst damage and damage over time, and the magic tree would get a slight increase in damage over time and a great boost to utility. I'd think this would make ninjas much more appealing to play than a mere boost to stats, which as mentioned doesn't really help the class in any significant manner. Also; Please reduce the level-requirement to 90 or 95. Consider that some of us may not want that pig-disgusting aura polluting our beautiful animu visages.

LSOI is a great skill that can be spammed, yet you seemed to just ignore it. By using LSOI, you already have some pretty nice DPS if you're geared properly. As for the level requirement, I'd agree to lowering it, but just to 98. You're asking for no aura, and 98 is enough to do it.

Nyalyn Wrote:In closing of the ninja-chapter I'd like to argue for the reinstatement of the ability to use Shadow Jump and Shadow Slash in WoE. As I understand it this effect can't be coded into items, so it would require tampering with the skills themselves, something I understand the GMs to be reluctant to do. However, I can't conceive of a reasonable argument against enabling these skills in WoE apart from "LOL GRAVITY IS THE BOSS", which frankly holds less water than a sieve at this stage of customization. Monks, champions and taekwon classes are all permitted to use their mobility skills in WoE, and every single one of them poses a bigger threat to the wellbeing of a castle than a ninja does. You know it be true.

Shadow slash lets you hide after you're on the person's cell, which is a significant improvement on FSK or snap, since it won't show your emblem hanging over your head because you're in hide (which is how I identify people in our emp, but maybe that's just me). Shadow jump allows you to move through a castle as fast as or even faster than a TK. Once again, a significant improvement compared to any of the mobility skills.

To sum up your ninja section: you're asking for a gear that's more powerful than kiel to built in for ninja. I'd say no, right off the bat. Caster ninjas should be treated like wizards such that without bragi, they're definitely weaker but when you put them in bragi, they're pretty difficult to take down. Ninjas don't need a kiel - they just need to learn to work with a group.

Nyalyn Wrote:Now then... gunslingers;
Personally I don't think this class is half as bad as the lack of people playing it suggests that it might be. They're class-cannons, to be sure, but powerful ones. The only real problems I see them having are the massive amount of SP their skills consume, the complete lack of utility, the fact that flip coin can't be relied upon in combat for five cents (heh), and the below-average survivability, which I contend that their damage-output more than makes up for. I'd suggest replacing the INT bonus of the Black Scarf with a significant reduction of SP consumption, say 30%.

The scarf stacks up the GS' HP, so it actually already increases the survivability. As for your built in pharaoh card for slingers, I'd say no once again. The skills are balanced with their costs, and slingers having more explosive long range damage would naturally have higher SP costs.

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Gunslingers and Ninjas were made such that they were stronger than nontrans, but not stronger than trans classes. You only need to 99 them once for their maximum potential (which definitely overpowers any nontrans classes), so I think it's normal for GS and Ninja to be weaker than the classes you're comparing them to.

[Force-Attuned Krogoth]

My biggest beef with the scarf is that for some unknown reason they thought magic ability was the downfall of the ninja, and at the same time the only way to play it. Give me some damned str on that thing.

[Nyalyn]

Corporal Wrote:This skill already bypasses enemy defense. Every other class would need a Combat Knife or Incant Sam card to do this, but you're doing it just by the base skill, and it's ranged to boot. Also, it never misses unless there's a pneuma or tatami (meaning you don't need dex for this to even hit). Making it go any faster is ridiculous.

Actually, it's only the mastery-bonus of the skill that bypasses defence, which is a truly minuscule amount. Also note that the skill doesn't benefit from percentage-cards, instead providing increased damage with higher ATK. A ninja with 120 STR wielding a +10 triple diligent gladius, throwing ice kunais against a high orc will do 2150 damage per throw.

Corporal Wrote:Being crippled for 5 seconds after a ranged skill that can do up to 5k (in PvP) or 10k (in PvM) and cannot be reduced? No, this skill is fine as is.

Its damage is halved against players by default, as you say. What you neglect to mention is that it is also reduced further by PvP gear, not to mention WoE, but let's disregard that for now: rank 10 TZ will do 1575-2700 damage per 5 seconds against a player with thara and a beret. 945-1620 in WoE. Every 5 seconds. I'll grant you that the damage is fair in PvM, though.

Corporal Wrote:It's balanced because of the 3 seconds, especially since you're already given cicada skin shedding. If you were able to spam tatami and spells in between, then it would be like you have a walking pneuma AND safety wall at the same time.

Except that the effect doesn't follow you; it stays rooted where you used it, and the other can hardly be classified as a safetywall since it shoots you off like a pingpong ball. As a somewhat of an aside; Can you think of another skill besides Basilica that serves no purpose but to root you into place, render you immune to a certain type of attacks, and disable all your attacks? And can you think of an actual use for such a skill? The humble fly wing strikes me as much more an attractive solution to any situation where you'd need the aforementioned skill.

Corporal Wrote:DFF is a strong skill already - you don't need to make it any stronger.

I actually agree with you on this point. As mentioned in the OP I was intending on writing a several-pages long wall of text of suggestions for slight improvements to each individual skill I felt was stupid, but figured it'd be far too much of a hassle for people to read, so instead I condensed it into as few sweeping points as I could. An unavoidable consequence of this is that skills I didn't want to be affected were, and I added DFF into the summary list specifically so I wouldn't get accused of trying to "sneak" buffs by the public eye. DFF is indeed fine as it is.

Corporal Wrote:O admit FIP and Lightning crash aren't as good as they could be, but there are simply MUCH easier ways to level or use a ninja (at bradium golems, for example) that wouldn't require you to get such useless skills.

But I was explicitly asking for buffs for these skills because of the utility they'd offer. As should be clear by now, the only source of substantial damage increase emerging from my suggestions is the doubling of over-time damage from TZ. Kunais will still be shitty, Fuuma will be slightly better but thanks to its damage split it will be limited to single or two-target kills, and all the spells with the exception of DFF which would be affected by the buffs are outdamaged by DFF and NW even without these buffs. I am not trying to make a killer class here, I am trying to make a harassment class, which is what I see the role of the ninja being, and as I see it these buffs would do exactly that.

Corporal Wrote:TZ is ranged, CT is melee. You can't reduce TZ, but CT you can pot off all day long since its very reducable. Give TZ a bragi and it's even more scary, especially since you stacked kiel on it (unless it's approx the same, then TZ itself is already strong enough and needs no buffs whatsoever).

As mentioned earlier you can reduce TZ damage with basic PvP gear, and even with double kiel cards the aftercast delay would still be 1.225 seconds, which is easily outpotted by aloe leaflets (RMS server; bragi with cranial+beret, using leaflets against a TZ-spamming ninja receiving aftercast-reduction from 70 int bragi, go test it out for yourself)

Corporal Wrote:LSOI is a great skill that can be spammed, yet you seemed to just ignore it. By using LSOI, you already have some pretty nice DPS if you're geared properly.

Wouldn't you know, I made a short video-series a few years back which still seems to apply:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkkh6wXjhw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iLTzZnTgoY

There are some flaws in there, but overall it is still sound enough for this discussion.

Corporal Wrote:Shadow slash lets you hide after you're on the person's cell, which is a significant improvement on FSK or snap, since it won't show your emblem hanging over your head because you're in hide (which is how I identify people in our emp, but maybe that's just me). Shadow jump allows you to move through a castle as fast as or even faster than a TK. Once again, a significant improvement compared to any of the mobility skills.

And how do smokie and frilldora cards not factor into your complains of this? Also it will still display a gigantic textbox reading "Shadow Jump !!", though. Another thing you left out is any mention of negative or imbalanced situations that could occur from giving ninjas this boost. What would they be able to do with this newfound mobility that makes it so horrible that they must never have it?

Corporal Wrote:To sum up your ninja section: you're asking for a gear that's more powerful than kiel to built in for ninja. I'd say no, right off the bat. Caster ninjas should be treated like wizards such that without bragi, they're definitely weaker but when you put them in bragi, they're pretty difficult to take down. Ninjas don't need a kiel - they just need to learn to work with a group.

The gear is only as good as the class you're using it on. The idea of a headgear that's basically a dual Kiel card only seems overpowered to you because you're appraising its value in terms of what it'd do to other classes.

You're also lumping wizards and ninjas together simply because they both use spells. Ninjas have vastly lower damage, they can't freeze reliably, don't have stone curse, their AoE slow has a relatively long cast-timer and its effects don't persist after the targets move out of it and so on - and rightly so. Again; these buffs wouldn't up their damage by much, it would just bring the throwing-skills out of the cesspit of mediocrity they currently occupy. The magic tree would only get utility buffs in the form of using FIP to freeze and LC to uncloak assassins, break ice etc.

Corporal Wrote:The scarf stacks up the GS' HP, so it actually already increases the survivability. As for your built in pharaoh card for slingers, I'd say no once again. The skills are balanced with their costs, and slingers having more explosive long range damage would naturally have higher SP costs.

But they'd STILL have higher SP costs, even with this. 2.5 times that of DS, in fact. And anyway, I didn't actually argue for higher survivability, I find that the idea of slingers being glass-cannons suits them very well, as I am sure I made clear in the OP.

Corporal Wrote:Gunslingers and Ninjas were made such that they were stronger than nontrans, but not stronger than trans classes. You only need to 99 them once for their maximum potential (which definitely overpowers any nontrans classes), so I think it's normal for GS and Ninja to be weaker than the classes you're comparing them to.

Again you're not arguing against things I've actually said. I haven't compared them to other classes at all, I've made these suggestions solely based upon the hope of making them seem more interesting to play, which in my interpretation does not include doing omfgwtf-damage. I think you'd find that even with the suggested buffs they'd still be easy kills for anyone who knows what they're doing and is, in the case of the ninjas, lucky enough to be a class that has skills that pierce cicada upon encountering one.

[Nyalyn]

Adding select changes from Renewal as effects to the scarf would also be an idea.